Constructivist epistemology
Encyclopedia
Constructivist epistemology is an epistemological perspective in philosophy
about the nature of scientific knowledge. Constructivists maintain that scientific knowledge is constructed by scientists and not discovered from the world. Constructivists claim that the concepts of science are mental constructs proposed in order to explain our sensory experience. Another important tenet of Constructivist theory is that there is no single valid methodology in science, but rather a diversity of useful methods. Constructivism is thus opposed to positivism
, which is a philosophy that holds that the only authentic knowledge is that which is based on actual sense experience and what other individuals tell us is right and wrong.
, education
and social constructivism. Constructivism criticizes objectivism, which embraces the belief that a human can come to know external reality (the reality that exists beyond one's own mind). Constructivism holds the opposite view, that the only reality we can know is that which is represented by human thought (assuming a disbelief or lack of faith in a superhuman God). Reality is independent of human thought, but meaning or knowledge is always a human construction.
Constructionism and constructivism are often used interchangeably. It is believed by constructivists that representations of physical and biological reality, including race, sexuality
, and gender
, as well as tables, chairs and atoms are socially constructed. Kant
, Garns, and Marx were among the first to suggest such an ambitious expansion of the power of ideas to inform the material realities of people's lives.
The expression "Constructivist epistemology" was first used by Jean Piaget
, 1967, with plural form in the famous article from the "Encyclopédie de la Pléiade" Logique et Connaissance scientifique or "Logic and Scientific knowledge", an important text for epistemology. He refers directly to the mathematician Brouwer
and his radical constructivism.
Moreover, in 1967, Peter L. Berger
and Thomas Luckmann
published The Social Construction of Reality
, which has initiated social constructionism
.
. Talk of verification in this connection is beside the point. According to constructivism, one must already have Reality in mind—that is, one must already know what Reality consists of—in order to confirm when one has at last "hit bottom." Richard Rorty
has said that all claims to Realism can be reduced to intuition
(Consequences of Pragmatism, chs. 9, 11). The Realist/Anti-Realist debate can be reduced, in the end, to a conflict of intuitions: "It seems to us that..." vs "Well, it seems to us that..." A realist would not view the argument in this way, and would say that one of these is misled, that one group perceives correctly, and the other perceives incorrectly. Strict constructivists will attest that there is no way to confirm one way or another, since the goal of inquiry (Reality) must be assumed to be understood at the outset.
Constructivism proposes new definitions for knowledge
and truth
that forms a new paradigm
, based on inter-subjectivity instead of the classical objectivity
and viability instead of truth. The constructivist point of view is pragmatic as Vico
said: "the truth is to have made it".
In this paradigm, "sciences of the artificial" (see Herbert Simon
) as cybernetics
, automatics or decision theory
, management
and engineering sciences can justify their teaching and have a space in the academy as "real sciences".
Several scientists and researchers see a close connection between constructivism and modeling and simulation
. A model is a purposeful abstraction and simplification of a perception of reality, captured as a formal but implementation independent specification of the resulting conceptualization of things, processes, and relation. The simulation implements the model, often on a digital computer. The result is a constructed reality in the computer from which new ideas can be generated. As these ideas, however, are rooted in the implementation of a model, hence being derived from a constructed reality, the principles are strongly connected with constructivism.
Social activity presupposes human beings inhabiting shared forms of life, and in the case of social construction, utilizing semiotic resources (meaning making and meaning signifying) with reference to social structures and institutions. Several traditions use the term Social Constructivism: psychology
(after Lev Vygotsky
), sociology
(after Peter Berger
and Thomas Luckmann
, themselves influenced by Alfred Schütz
), sociology of knowledge
(David Bloor
), sociology
of mathematics
(Sal Restivo
), philosophy of mathematics
(Paul Ernest
). Ludwig Wittgenstein
's later philosophy can be seen as a foundation for Social Constructivism, with its key theoretical concepts of language games embedded in forms of life.
has published numerous social and educational books on critical constructivism (2001, 2005, 2008), a version of constructivist epistemology that places emphasis on the exaggerated influence of political and cultural power in the construction of knowledge, consciousness, and views of reality. In the contemporary mediated electronic era, Kincheloe argues, dominant modes of power have never exerted such influence on human affairs. Coming from a critical pedagogical
perspective, Kincheloe argues that understanding a critical constructivist epistemology is central to becoming an educated person and to the institution of just social change.
Kincheloe's characteristics of critical constructivism:
From a realist's point of view, both postmodernism
and constructivism can be seen as relativist
theories.
Radical constructivism
Critical constructivism
Genetic epistemology
. This is because it takes the concept of truth to be a socially "constructed" (and thereby socially relative) one. This leads to the charge of self-refutation: if what is to be regarded as "true" is relative to a particular social formation, then this very conception of truth
must itself be only regarded as being "true" in this society. In another social formation, it may well be false. If so, then social constructivism itself would be false in that social formation. Further, one could then say that social constructivism could be both true and false simultaneously.
Another criticism of constructivism is that it holds that the concepts of two different social formations be entirely different and incommensurate. This being the case, it is impossible to make comparative judgements about statements made according to each worldview. This is because the criteria of judgement will themselves have to be based on some worldview or other. If this is the case, then it brings into question how communication between them about the truth or falsity of any given statement could be established.
Social Constructivists often argue that constructivism is liberating because it either (1) enables oppressed groups to reconstruct "the World" in accordance with their own interests rather than according to the interests of dominant groups in society, or (2) compels people to respect the alternative worldviews of oppressed groups because there is no way of judging them to be inferior to dominant worldviews. As the Wittgensteinian philosopher Gavin Kitching
argues, however, constructivists usually implicitly presuppose a deterministic view of language which severely constrains the minds and use of words by members of societies: they are not just "constructed" by language on this view, but are literally "determined" by it. Kitching notes the contradiction here: somehow the advocate of constructivism is not similarly constrained. While other individuals are controlled by the dominant concepts of society, the advocate of constructivism can transcend these concepts and see though them. A similar point is made by Edward Mariyani-Squire
Proponents
Proponents (further)
Critics
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
about the nature of scientific knowledge. Constructivists maintain that scientific knowledge is constructed by scientists and not discovered from the world. Constructivists claim that the concepts of science are mental constructs proposed in order to explain our sensory experience. Another important tenet of Constructivist theory is that there is no single valid methodology in science, but rather a diversity of useful methods. Constructivism is thus opposed to positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
, which is a philosophy that holds that the only authentic knowledge is that which is based on actual sense experience and what other individuals tell us is right and wrong.
Overview
Constructivism has roots in chemistryConstructivism (psychological school)
In psychology, constructivism concerns the world of constructivist psychologies. Many schools of psychotherapy self-define themselves as “constructivist”. Although extraordinarily different in their therapeutic techniques, they are all connected by a common critique to previous standard approaches...
, education
Constructivism (learning theory)
Constructivism is a theory of knowledge that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. During infancy, it was an interaction between human experiences and their reflexes or behavior-patterns. Piaget called these systems of...
and social constructivism. Constructivism criticizes objectivism, which embraces the belief that a human can come to know external reality (the reality that exists beyond one's own mind). Constructivism holds the opposite view, that the only reality we can know is that which is represented by human thought (assuming a disbelief or lack of faith in a superhuman God). Reality is independent of human thought, but meaning or knowledge is always a human construction.
Constructionism and constructivism are often used interchangeably. It is believed by constructivists that representations of physical and biological reality, including race, sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
, and gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
, as well as tables, chairs and atoms are socially constructed. Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
, Garns, and Marx were among the first to suggest such an ambitious expansion of the power of ideas to inform the material realities of people's lives.
The expression "Constructivist epistemology" was first used by Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
, 1967, with plural form in the famous article from the "Encyclopédie de la Pléiade" Logique et Connaissance scientifique or "Logic and Scientific knowledge", an important text for epistemology. He refers directly to the mathematician Brouwer
Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer
Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer FRS , usually cited as L. E. J. Brouwer but known to his friends as Bertus, was a Dutch mathematician and philosopher, a graduate of the University of Amsterdam, who worked in topology, set theory, measure theory and complex analysis.-Biography:Early in his career,...
and his radical constructivism.
Moreover, in 1967, Peter L. Berger
Peter L. Berger
Peter Ludwig Berger is an Austrian-born American sociologist well known for his work, co-authored with Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge .-Biography:...
and Thomas Luckmann
Thomas Luckmann
Thomas Luckmann is a German sociologist of Slovene origin. His main areas of research are the sociology of communication, Sociology of knowledge, sociology of religion, and the philosophy of science.- Biography :...
published The Social Construction of Reality
The Social Construction of Reality
The Social Construction of Reality is a book about the sociology of knowledge written by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann and published in 1966....
, which has initiated social constructionism
Social constructionism
Social constructionism and social constructivism are sociological theories of knowledge that consider how social phenomena or objects of consciousness develop in social contexts. A social construction is a concept or practice that is the construct of a particular group...
.
History
Constructivism has many roots:- The thought of Greek philosophers such as HeraclitusHeraclitusHeraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...
(Everything flows, nothing stands still), ProtagorasProtagorasProtagoras was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue Protagoras, Plato credits him with having invented the role of the professional sophist or teacher of virtue...
(Man is the measure of all things). Protagoras is clearly represented by Plato and hence the tradition as a relativist. The Pyrrhonist sceptics have also been so interpreted. (Although this is more contentious.) - After the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, with the phenomenology and the event, KantKANTKANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
gives a decisive contradiction to Cartesians’ epistemology that has grown since Descartes despite Giambattista VicoGiambattista VicoGiovanni Battista ' Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist....
calls in "La scienza nuova" (the new science) in 1708 reminding that "the norm of the truth is to have made it". - The Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment's universalist tendencies involved an emphasis on the separate natures of races, species, sexes and types of human.
- Gaston BachelardGaston BachelardGaston Bachelard was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter he introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break...
, who is known for his physics psychoanalysis and the definition of an "epistemologic obstacle" that can disturb a changing of scientific paradigm as the one that occurred between classical mechanics and Einstein’s relativism, opens the teleological way with "The meditation on the object takes the form of the project". In the following famous saying, he insists that the ways in which questions are posed determines the trajectory of scientific movement, before summarizing "nothing is given, all is constructed" : "And, irrespective of what one might assume, in the life of a science, problems do not arise by themselves. It is precisely this that marks out a problem as being of the true scientific spirit: all knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself. Nothing is given. All is constructed.", Gaston Bachelard (La formation de l'esprit scientifique, 1934). While quantum mechanics is starting to grow, Gaston Bachelard makes a call for a new science in Le Nouvel Esprit scientifique (The new scientific spirit). - Paul ValéryPaul ValéryAmbroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
, French poet (20th c.) reminds us of the importance of representations and action: "We have always sought explanations when it was only representations that we could seek to invent", "My hand feels touched as well as it touches; reality says this, and nothing more". - This link with action, which could be called a "philosophy of action", was well represented by Spanish poet Antonio MachadoAntonio MachadoAntonio Cipriano José María y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz, known as Antonio Machado was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98....
: Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. - Ludwik FleckLudwik FleckLudwik Fleck was a Polish Israeli medical doctor and biologist who developed in the 1930s the concept of Denkkollektiv...
establishes scientific constructivism by introducing the notions of thought collective (Denkkollektiv), and thought style (Denkstil), through which the evolution of science is much more understandable, because the research objects can be described in terms of the assumptions (thought style) that are shared for practical but also inherently social reasons, or just because any thought collective tends to preserve itself. These notions have been drawn upon by Thomas KuhnThomas KuhnThomas Samuel Kuhn was an American historian and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was deeply influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift," which has since become an English-language staple.Kuhn...
. - Norbert WienerNorbert WienerNorbert Wiener was an American mathematician.A famous child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.Wiener is regarded as the originator of cybernetics, a...
gives another defense of teleology in 1943 "Behavior, intention and teleology" and is one of the creators of cybernetics. - Jean PiagetJean PiagetJean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
, after the creation in 1955 of the International Centre for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva, first uses the expression "constructivist epistemologies" (see above). According to Ernst von GlasersfeldErnst von GlasersfeldErnst von Glasersfeld was a philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia, Research Associate at the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
, Jean Piaget is "the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing" (in An Exposition of Constructivism: Why Some Like it Radical, 1990) and "the most prolific constructivist in our century" (in Aspects of Radical Constructivism, 1996). - Herbert SimonHerbert SimonHerbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
called « The sciences of the artificial » these new sciences (cybernetics, cognitive sciences, decision and organisation sciences) that, because of the abstraction of their object (information, communication, decision), cannot match with the classical epistemology and its experimental method and refutability. - Gregory BatesonGregory BatesonGregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
and his book Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972). - George Kelly (psychologist)George Kelly (psychologist)George Kelly or George Kelley was an American psychologist, therapist and educator. He was best known for developing Personal Construct Psychology.- Biography :...
and his book The Psychology of Personal Constructs (1955). - Heinz von FoersterHeinz von FoersterHeinz von Foerster was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy. Together with Warren McCulloch, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Lawrence J. Fogel, and others, Heinz von Foerster was an architect of cybernetics.-Biography:Von Foerster was born in 1911 in Vienna, Austria,...
, invited by Jean Piaget, presented "Objects: tokens for (Eigen-)behaviours" in 1976 in Geneva at a Genetic Epistemology Symposium, a text that would become a reference for constructivist epistemology. - Paul WatzlawickPaul WatzlawickPaul Watzlawick was an Austrian-American psychologist and philosopher. A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, he has commented in the fields of family therapy and general psychotherapy...
, who supervised in 1984 the publication of Invented Reality: How Do We Know What We Believe We Know? (Contributions to constructivism). - Ernst von GlasersfeldErnst von GlasersfeldErnst von Glasersfeld was a philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia, Research Associate at the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
, who has promoted since the end of the 70s radical constructivism (see below). - Edgar MorinEdgar MorinEdgar Morin is a French philosopher and sociologist born Edgar Nahoum in Paris on July 8, 1921. He is of Judeo-Spanish origin. He is known for the transdisciplinarity of his works.- Biography :...
and his book La Méthode (1977–2004, six volumes). - Mioara Mugur-SchächterMioara Mugur-SchächterMioara Mugur-Schächter is a French physicist of Romanian origin, a specialist in quantum physics and epistemology.-Biography:Of Romanian descent, she arrived in France in 1962 from Bucharest...
who is also a quantum mechanics specialist. - Jean-Louis Le MoigneJean-Louis Le MoigneJean-Louis Le Moigne is a French specialist on systemics and constructivist epistemology. He is an alumnus from Ecole Centrale Paris.-Biography:...
for his encyclopedic work on constructivist epistemology and his General Systems theory (see "Le Moigne's Defense of Constructivism" by Ernst von GlasersfeldErnst von GlasersfeldErnst von Glasersfeld was a philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia, Research Associate at the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
). - Niklas LuhmannNiklas LuhmannNiklas Luhmann was a German sociologist, and a prominent thinker in sociological systems theory.-Biography:...
who developed 'operative constructivism' in the course of developing his theory of autopoietic social systems, drawing on the works of (among others) Bachelard, Valéry, Bateson, von Foerster, von Glasersfeld and Morin.
Constructivism's concepts and ideas
The common thread among all forms of constructivism is that they do not focus on an ontological reality, but instead on a constructed reality. Indeed, a basic presupposition of constructivism is that Reality-As-It-Is-In-Itself (Ontological Reality) is utterly incoherent as a concept, since there is no way to verify how one has finally reached a definitive notion of RealityReality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
. Talk of verification in this connection is beside the point. According to constructivism, one must already have Reality in mind—that is, one must already know what Reality consists of—in order to confirm when one has at last "hit bottom." Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...
has said that all claims to Realism can be reduced to intuition
Intuition (knowledge)
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. "The word 'intuition' comes from the Latin word 'intueri', which is often roughly translated as meaning 'to look inside'’ or 'to contemplate'." Intuition provides us with beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify...
(Consequences of Pragmatism, chs. 9, 11). The Realist/Anti-Realist debate can be reduced, in the end, to a conflict of intuitions: "It seems to us that..." vs "Well, it seems to us that..." A realist would not view the argument in this way, and would say that one of these is misled, that one group perceives correctly, and the other perceives incorrectly. Strict constructivists will attest that there is no way to confirm one way or another, since the goal of inquiry (Reality) must be assumed to be understood at the outset.
Constructivism proposes new definitions for knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
and truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
that forms a new paradigm
Paradigm
The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...
, based on inter-subjectivity instead of the classical objectivity
Objectivity (philosophy)
Objectivity is a central philosophical concept which has been variously defined by sources. A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, not met by the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.- Objectivism...
and viability instead of truth. The constructivist point of view is pragmatic as Vico
Giambattista Vico
Giovanni Battista ' Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist....
said: "the truth is to have made it".
In this paradigm, "sciences of the artificial" (see Herbert Simon
Herbert Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
) as cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
, automatics or decision theory
Decision theory
Decision theory in economics, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and statistics is concerned with identifying the values, uncertainties and other issues relevant in a given decision, its rationality, and the resulting optimal decision...
, management
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
and engineering sciences can justify their teaching and have a space in the academy as "real sciences".
Several scientists and researchers see a close connection between constructivism and modeling and simulation
Modeling and simulation
Modeling and simulation is the use of models, including emulators, prototypes, simulators, and stimulators, either statically or over time, to develop data as a basis for making managerial or technical decisions. The terms "modeling" and "simulation" are often used interchangeably.The use of...
. A model is a purposeful abstraction and simplification of a perception of reality, captured as a formal but implementation independent specification of the resulting conceptualization of things, processes, and relation. The simulation implements the model, often on a digital computer. The result is a constructed reality in the computer from which new ideas can be generated. As these ideas, however, are rooted in the implementation of a model, hence being derived from a constructed reality, the principles are strongly connected with constructivism.
Social constructivism in sociology
One version of social constructivism contends that categories of knowledge and reality are actively created by social relationships and interactions. These interactions also alter the way in which scientific episteme is organized.Social activity presupposes human beings inhabiting shared forms of life, and in the case of social construction, utilizing semiotic resources (meaning making and meaning signifying) with reference to social structures and institutions. Several traditions use the term Social Constructivism: psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
(after Lev Vygotsky
Lev Vygotsky
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Soviet psychologist, the founder of cultural-historical psychology, and the leader of the Vygotsky Circle.-Biography:...
), sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
(after Peter Berger
Peter L. Berger
Peter Ludwig Berger is an Austrian-born American sociologist well known for his work, co-authored with Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge .-Biography:...
and Thomas Luckmann
Thomas Luckmann
Thomas Luckmann is a German sociologist of Slovene origin. His main areas of research are the sociology of communication, Sociology of knowledge, sociology of religion, and the philosophy of science.- Biography :...
, themselves influenced by Alfred Schütz
Alfred Schütz
Alfred Schütz was an Austrian social scientist, whose work bridged sociological and phenomenological traditions to form a social phenomenology, and who is gradually achieving recognition as one of the foremost philosophers of social science of the [twentieth] century.-Life:Schütz was born in...
), sociology of knowledge
Sociology of knowledge
The Sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the social context within which it arises, and of the effects prevailing ideas have on societies...
(David Bloor
David Bloor
David Bloor is a professor in, and a former director of, the at the University of Edinburgh .He started his academic career in philosophy and psychology. In the 1970s he and Barry Barnes were the major figures of the strong programme, which put forward queries against philosophical a priorism in...
), sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
of mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
(Sal Restivo
Sal Restivo
Sal Restivo is a leading contributor to science studies and in particular to the sociology of mathematical knowledge. His current work focuses on the sociology and anthropology of mind and brain, and the sociology of god and religion. He has also done work in the sociology of social and sociable...
), philosophy of mathematics
Philosophy of mathematics
The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. The aim of the philosophy of mathematics is to provide an account of the nature and methodology of mathematics and to understand the place of...
(Paul Ernest
Paul Ernest
Paul Ernest is a recent contributor to the social constructivist philosophy of mathematics. He illustrates this position in his discussion of the issue of whether mathematics is discovered or invented...
). Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
's later philosophy can be seen as a foundation for Social Constructivism, with its key theoretical concepts of language games embedded in forms of life.
Constructivism and psychology
Constructivism and education
Joe L. KincheloeJoe L. Kincheloe
Joe Lyons Kincheloe, , was a professor and Canada Research Chair at the Faculty of Education, McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He wrote more than 45 books, numerous book-chapters, and hundreds of journal articles on issues including critical pedagogy, educational research, urban...
has published numerous social and educational books on critical constructivism (2001, 2005, 2008), a version of constructivist epistemology that places emphasis on the exaggerated influence of political and cultural power in the construction of knowledge, consciousness, and views of reality. In the contemporary mediated electronic era, Kincheloe argues, dominant modes of power have never exerted such influence on human affairs. Coming from a critical pedagogical
Critical pedagogy
Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education described by Henry Giroux as an "educational movement, guided by passion and principle, to help students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive...
perspective, Kincheloe argues that understanding a critical constructivist epistemology is central to becoming an educated person and to the institution of just social change.
Kincheloe's characteristics of critical constructivism:
- Knowledge is socially constructed: World and information co-construct one another
- Consciousness is a social construction
- Political struggles: Power plays an exaggerated role in the production of knowledge and consciousness
- The necessity of understanding consciousness—even though it does not lend itself to traditional reductionistic modes of measurability
- The importance of uniting logic and emotion in the process of knowledge and producing knowledge
- The inseparability of the knower and the known
- The centrality of the perspectives of oppressed peoples—the value of the insights of those who have suffered as the result of existing social arrangements
- The existence of multiple realities: Making sense of a world far more complex that we originally imagined
- Becoming humble knowledge workers: Understanding our location in the tangled web of reality
- Standpoint epistemology: Locating ourselves in the web of reality, we are better equipped to produce our own knowledges
- Constructing practical knowledge for critical social action
- Complexity: Overcoming reductionism
- Knowledge is always entrenched in a larger process
- The centrality of interpretation: Critical hermeneutics
- The new frontier of classroom knowledge: Personal experiences intersecting with pluriversal information
- Constructing new ways of being human: Critical ontology
Constructivism and postmodernism
For some, social constructionism can be seen as a source of the postmodern movement, and has been influential in the field of cultural studies. Some have gone so far as to attribute the rise of cultural studies (the cultural turn) to social constructionism.From a realist's point of view, both postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
and constructivism can be seen as relativist
Relativism
Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration....
theories.
Constructivist trends
Cultural constructivism- Cultural constructivism asserts that knowledge and reality are a product of their cultural context, meaning that two independent cultures will likely form different observational methodologies. For instance, Western cultures generally rely on objects for scientific descriptions; by contrast, Native American culture relies on events for descriptions. These are two distinct ways of constructing reality based on external artifacts.
Radical constructivism
- Ernst von GlasersfeldErnst von GlasersfeldErnst von Glasersfeld was a philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia, Research Associate at the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
was a prominent proponent of radical constructivism, which claims that knowledge is the self-organized cognitive process of the human brain. That is, the process of constructing knowledge regulates itself, and since knowledge is a construct rather than a compilation of empirical data, it is impossible to know the extent to which knowledge reflects an ontological reality.
Critical constructivism
- A series of articles published in the journal Critical Inquiry (1991) served as a manifesto for the movement of critical constructivism in various disciplines, including the natural scienceNatural scienceThe natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...
s. Not only truth and reality, but also "evidenceEvidenceEvidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...
", "documentDocumentThe term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings :* document, written document, papers...
", "experienceExperienceExperience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event....
", "factFactA fact is something that has really occurred or is actually the case. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability, that is whether it can be shown to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts...
", "proof", and other central categories of empirical research (in physicsPhysicsPhysics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, biologyBiologyBiology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, statisticsStatisticsStatistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
, historyHistoryHistory is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, lawLawLaw is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
, etc.) reveal their contingent character as a social and ideological construction. Thus, a "realist" or "rationalist" interpretation is subjected to criticism. Kincheloe's political and pedagogical notion (above) has emerged as a central articulation of the concept.
- While recognizing the constructedness of reality, many representatives of this critical paradigm deny philosophy the task of the creative construction of reality. They eagerly criticize realistic judgments, but they do not move beyond analytic procedures based on subtle tautologiesTautology (logic)In logic, a tautology is a formula which is true in every possible interpretation. Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein first applied the term to redundancies of propositional logic in 1921; it had been used earlier to refer to rhetorical tautologies, and continues to be used in that alternate sense...
. They thus remain in the critical paradigm and consider it to be a standard of scientific philosophy per se.
Genetic epistemology
- James Mark BaldwinJames Mark BaldwinJames Mark Baldwin was an American philosopher and psychologist who was educated at Princeton under the supervision of Scottish philosopher James McCosh and who was one of the founders of the Department of Psychology at the university...
invented this expression, which was later popularized by Jean PiagetJean PiagetJean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
. From 1955 to 1980, Piaget was Director of the International Centre for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva.
Quotations
- Verum esse ipsum factum, Giambattista VicoGiambattista VicoGiovanni Battista ' Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist....
-
- "the norm of the truth is to have made it," or
- "the true is precisely what is made"
- Verum et factum convertuntur, Giambattista VicoGiambattista VicoGiovanni Battista ' Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist....
- Verum et factum convertuntur, Giambattista Vico
- "the true and the made are convertible"
- Et, quoi qu’on en dise, dans la vie scientifique, les problèmes ne se posent pas d’eux-mêmes. C’est précisément ce sens du problème qui donne la marque du véritable esprit scientifique. Pour un esprit scientifique, toute connaissance est une réponse à une question. S’il n’y a pas eu de question, il ne peut y avoir de connaissance scientifique. Rien ne va de soi. Rien n’est donné. Tout est construit, Gaston BachelardGaston BachelardGaston Bachelard was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter he introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break...
(La formation de l'esprit scientifique, 1934)
- Et, quoi qu’on en dise, dans la vie scientifique, les problèmes ne se posent pas d’eux-mêmes. C’est précisément ce sens du problème qui donne la marque du véritable esprit scientifique. Pour un esprit scientifique, toute connaissance est une réponse à une question. S’il n’y a pas eu de question, il ne peut y avoir de connaissance scientifique. Rien ne va de soi. Rien n’est donné. Tout est construit, Gaston Bachelard
- "And, irrespective of what one might assume, in the life of a science, problems do not arise by themselves. It is precisely this that marks out a problem as being of the true scientific spirit: all knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself. Nothing is given. All is constructed."
- On a toujours cherché des explications quand c’était des représentations qu’on pouvait seulement essayer d’inventer, Paul ValéryPaul ValéryAmbroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
- On a toujours cherché des explications quand c’était des représentations qu’on pouvait seulement essayer d’inventer, Paul Valéry
- "We have always sought explanations when it was only representations that we could seek to invent"
- Ma main se sent touchée aussi bien qu’elle touche ; réel veut dire cela, et rien de plus, Paul ValéryPaul ValéryAmbroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
- Ma main se sent touchée aussi bien qu’elle touche ; réel veut dire cela, et rien de plus, Paul Valéry
- "My hand feels touched as well as it touches; that's reality, and nothing more"
- Intelligence organizes the world by organizing itself, Jean PiagetJean PiagetJean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
in "La construction du réel chez l'enfant" (1937) - "If the natives are in different worlds, how come we can shoot them?" Stephen StichStephen StichStephen Stich is a professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He is also currently an Honorary Professor of the department of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Stich's main philosophical interests are in the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, epistemology, and moral psychology. He...
- "I was once accused by Rene Thom of being a constructivist, which I understand was worse than being called an empiricist; I replied that I took pride in it" Sydney BrennerSydney BrennerSydney Brenner, CH FRS is a South African biologist and a 2002 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate, shared with H...
2010
- Intelligence organizes the world by organizing itself, Jean Piaget
Criticisms
Numerous criticisms have been leveled at Constructivist epistemology. The most common one is that it either explicitly advocates or implicitly reduces to relativismRelativism
Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration....
. This is because it takes the concept of truth to be a socially "constructed" (and thereby socially relative) one. This leads to the charge of self-refutation: if what is to be regarded as "true" is relative to a particular social formation, then this very conception of truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
must itself be only regarded as being "true" in this society. In another social formation, it may well be false. If so, then social constructivism itself would be false in that social formation. Further, one could then say that social constructivism could be both true and false simultaneously.
Another criticism of constructivism is that it holds that the concepts of two different social formations be entirely different and incommensurate. This being the case, it is impossible to make comparative judgements about statements made according to each worldview. This is because the criteria of judgement will themselves have to be based on some worldview or other. If this is the case, then it brings into question how communication between them about the truth or falsity of any given statement could be established.
Social Constructivists often argue that constructivism is liberating because it either (1) enables oppressed groups to reconstruct "the World" in accordance with their own interests rather than according to the interests of dominant groups in society, or (2) compels people to respect the alternative worldviews of oppressed groups because there is no way of judging them to be inferior to dominant worldviews. As the Wittgensteinian philosopher Gavin Kitching
Gavin Kitching
Gavin Kitching is a British author and professor of social sciences and international relations at the University of New South Wales, where he has taught since 1991...
argues, however, constructivists usually implicitly presuppose a deterministic view of language which severely constrains the minds and use of words by members of societies: they are not just "constructed" by language on this view, but are literally "determined" by it. Kitching notes the contradiction here: somehow the advocate of constructivism is not similarly constrained. While other individuals are controlled by the dominant concepts of society, the advocate of constructivism can transcend these concepts and see though them. A similar point is made by Edward Mariyani-Squire
even if Social Constructivism were true, there is nothing necessarily liberating about entities being socially constructed. There is not necessarily any political advantage to be gained by thinking of Nature as a social construction if, as a political agent, one is systematically trapped, marginalised and subdued by means of social construction. Further to this general theme, when one looks at much Social Constructivist discourse (especially that informed by Michel Foucault), one finds something of a bifurcation between the theorist and the non-theorist. The theorist always plays the role of the constructor of discourses, while the non-theorist plays the role of the subject who is constructed in a quite deterministic fashion. This has a strong resonance with the point already made about solipsistic theism - here the theorist, conceptually anyway, “plays God” with his/her subject (whatever or whoever that may be). In short, while it is often assumed that Social Constructivism implies flexibility and indeterminism, there is no logical reason why one cannot treat social constructions as fatalistic.
See also
Related subjects- Anti-racist math
- Deutsche PhysikDeutsche PhysikDeutsche Physik or Aryan Physics was a nationalist movement in the German physics community in the early 1930s against the work of Albert Einstein, labeled "Jewish Physics"...
- Collective Simulations
- ComplexityComplexityIn general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of complex systems theory. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are...
- Constructivism (learning theory)Constructivism (learning theory)Constructivism is a theory of knowledge that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. During infancy, it was an interaction between human experiences and their reflexes or behavior-patterns. Piaget called these systems of...
- Constructivism in international relationsConstructivism in international relationsIn the discipline of international relations, constructivism is the claim that significant aspects of international relations are historically and socially contingent, rather than inevitable consequences of human nature or other essential characteristics of world politics.-Development:Nicholas Onuf...
- Family therapyFamily therapyFamily therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy, family systems therapy, and family counseling, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of...
- IrrealismIrrealism (philosophy)Irrealism is a philosophical position first advanced by Nelson Goodman in "Ways of Worldmaking", encompassing epistemology, metaphysics and aesthetics.-Nelson Goodman's irrealism:...
- MetacognitionMetacognitionMetacognition is defined as "cognition about cognition", or "knowing about knowing." It can take many forms; it includes knowledge about when and how to use particular strategies for learning or for problem solving...
- Personal construct psychology
- Phronetic social sciencePhronetic social sciencePhronetic social science is an approach to the study of social – including political and economic – phenomena based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, variously translated as practical judgment, common sense, or prudence. Phronesis is the intellectual virtue...
- PostmodernismPostmodernismPostmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
- Science and technology studiesScience and technology studiesScience, technology and society is the study of how social, political, and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation, and how these, in turn, affect society, politics and culture...
- Social constructionismSocial constructionismSocial constructionism and social constructivism are sociological theories of knowledge that consider how social phenomena or objects of consciousness develop in social contexts. A social construction is a concept or practice that is the construct of a particular group...
- Systems theorySystems theorySystems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...
- TeleologyTeleologyA teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
Proponents
- Gaston BachelardGaston BachelardGaston Bachelard was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter he introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break...
- Gregory BatesonGregory BatesonGregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...
- Michael DummettMichael DummettSir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett FBA D.Litt is a British philosopher. He was, until 1992, Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford...
- Ludwik FleckLudwik FleckLudwik Fleck was a Polish Israeli medical doctor and biologist who developed in the 1930s the concept of Denkkollektiv...
- Heinz von FoersterHeinz von FoersterHeinz von Foerster was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy. Together with Warren McCulloch, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Lawrence J. Fogel, and others, Heinz von Foerster was an architect of cybernetics.-Biography:Von Foerster was born in 1911 in Vienna, Austria,...
- Ernst von GlasersfeldErnst von GlasersfeldErnst von Glasersfeld was a philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia, Research Associate at the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
- Barbara Herrnstein SmithBarbara Herrnstein SmithBarbara Herrnstein Smith is an American literary critic and theorist, best known for her work Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory...
- Immanuel KantImmanuel KantImmanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
- George Kelly (psychologist)George Kelly (psychologist)George Kelly or George Kelley was an American psychologist, therapist and educator. He was best known for developing Personal Construct Psychology.- Biography :...
- Humberto MaturanaHumberto MaturanaHumberto Maturana is a Chilean biologist and philosopher. He is considered a member of the second wave of cybernetics, known for developing a theory of autopoiesis about the nature of reflexive feedback control in living systems.- Biography :After completing secondary school at the Liceo Manuel de...
- Jean-Louis Le MoigneJean-Louis Le MoigneJean-Louis Le Moigne is a French specialist on systemics and constructivist epistemology. He is an alumnus from Ecole Centrale Paris.-Biography:...
- Edgar MorinEdgar MorinEdgar Morin is a French philosopher and sociologist born Edgar Nahoum in Paris on July 8, 1921. He is of Judeo-Spanish origin. He is known for the transdisciplinarity of his works.- Biography :...
- Jean PiagetJean PiagetJean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
- Rupert RiedlRupert RiedlRupert Riedl was an Austrian zoologist who made contributions in the fields of:* Marine biology* Morphology* Theory of evolution * Evolutionary Epistemology* Environment and society...
- Richard RortyRichard RortyRichard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...
- David RosenhanDavid RosenhanDavid L. Rosenhan is an American psychologist. He is best known for the Rosenhan experiment.Rosenhan received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Yeshiva University...
Proponents (further)
- Herbert SimonHerbert SimonHerbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
- Francisco VarelaFrancisco VarelaFrancisco Javier Varela García , was a Chilean biologist, philosopher and neuroscientist who, together with his teacher Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesis to biology.-Biography:...
- Giambattista VicoGiambattista VicoGiovanni Battista ' Vico or Vigo was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist....
- Paul WatzlawickPaul WatzlawickPaul Watzlawick was an Austrian-American psychologist and philosopher. A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, he has commented in the fields of family therapy and general psychotherapy...
- Alexander WendtAlexander WendtAlexander Wendt is one of the core social constructivist scholars in the field of international relations. Wendt and scholars such as Nicholas Onuf, Peter J...
- Niklas LuhmannNiklas LuhmannNiklas Luhmann was a German sociologist, and a prominent thinker in sociological systems theory.-Biography:...
Critics
- Michael DevittMichael DevittMichael Devitt is an Australian philosopher currently teaching at the City University of New York in New York City. His primary interests include philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics and epistemology...
- Paul BoghossianPaul BoghossianPaul Boghossian is professor of philosophy at New York University, where he held the chair for ten years . His research interests include epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language....
Further reading
- Devitt, M. 1997. Realism and Truth. Princeton University Press.
- Gillett, E. 1998. "Relativism and the Social-constructivist Paradigm", Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, Vol.5, No.1, pp. 37–48
- Joe L. KincheloeJoe L. KincheloeJoe Lyons Kincheloe, , was a professor and Canada Research Chair at the Faculty of Education, McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He wrote more than 45 books, numerous book-chapters, and hundreds of journal articles on issues including critical pedagogy, educational research, urban...
(2001) "Getting beyond the Facts: Teaching Social Studies/Social Science in the Twenty-First Century." NY: Peter Lang. - Joe L. KincheloeJoe L. KincheloeJoe Lyons Kincheloe, , was a professor and Canada Research Chair at the Faculty of Education, McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He wrote more than 45 books, numerous book-chapters, and hundreds of journal articles on issues including critical pedagogy, educational research, urban...
(2005) "Critical Constructivism Primer." NY: Peter Lang. - Joe L. KincheloeJoe L. KincheloeJoe Lyons Kincheloe, , was a professor and Canada Research Chair at the Faculty of Education, McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He wrote more than 45 books, numerous book-chapters, and hundreds of journal articles on issues including critical pedagogy, educational research, urban...
(2008) "Knowledge and Critical Pedagogy." Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. - Kitching, G. 2008. The Trouble with Theory: The Educational Costs of Postmodernism. Penn State University Press.
- Mariyani-Squire, E. 1999. "Social Constructivism: A flawed Debate over Conceptual Foundations", Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, vol.10, no.4, pp. 97–125
- Matthews, M.R. (ed.) 1998. Constructivism in Science Education: A Philosophical Examination. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
- Edgar MorinEdgar MorinEdgar Morin is a French philosopher and sociologist born Edgar Nahoum in Paris on July 8, 1921. He is of Judeo-Spanish origin. He is known for the transdisciplinarity of his works.- Biography :...
1986, La Méthode, Tome 3, La Connaissance de la connaissance - Nola, R. 1997. "Constructivism in Science and in Science Education: A Philosophical Critique", Science & Education vol.6, no.1-2, pp. 55–83.
- Jean PiagetJean PiagetJean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
(1967). Logique et Connaissance scientifique, Encyclopédie de la Pléiade. - Herbert SimonHerbert SimonHerbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
(1969). The Sciences of the Artificial 3rd Edition MIT Press (1996). - Slezak, P. 2000 "A Critique of Radical Social Constructivism", in D.C. Philips, (ed.) 2000. Constructivism in Education: Opinions and Second Opinions on Controversial Issues. The University of Chicago Press.
- Suchting, W.A. 1992. "Constructivism Deconstructed", Science & Education, vol.1, no.3, pp. 223–254
- Paul WatzlawickPaul WatzlawickPaul Watzlawick was an Austrian-American psychologist and philosopher. A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, he has commented in the fields of family therapy and general psychotherapy...
(1984). Invented Reality: How Do We Know What We Believe We Know? (Contributions to constructivism), W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition. - Ernst von GlasersfeldErnst von GlasersfeldErnst von Glasersfeld was a philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia, Research Associate at the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
(1987) The construction of knowledge, Contributions to conceptual semantics. - Ernst von GlasersfeldErnst von GlasersfeldErnst von Glasersfeld was a philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia, Research Associate at the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
(1995) Radical constructivism: A way of knowing and learning. - Tom RockmoreTom RockmoreTom Rockmore was born in New York City. Although he denies the usual distinction between philosophy and the history of philosophy, he has strong interests throughout the history of philosophy and defends a constructivist view of epistemology. The philosophers whom he has studied extensively are...
(2008), On Constructivist Epistemology
External links
- http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/tf/10720537.htmlJournal of Constructivist Psychology
- Radical Constructivism
- Constructivist Foundations is a peer-reviewed journal which publishes papers on radical constructivism, enactivist cognitive science, second order cybernetics, and related topics.